It's the Small Things that Destroy Us
by BaKassak
Summary: Morty is haunted by his memories of the Jellybean King. Summer and Beth are having difficulty with their emotions. And Jerry is just...being Jerry. The family is not doing so well, and frankly they're not sure that they'll ever be able to piece themselves back into a normal family. [A series of one-shots]
1. Morty I

**I feel like my writing may be too stiff. I anyone reading this has some feedback, I'd gladly accept it. Hopefully you guys can figure out what [redacted] means by the end of the chapter.**

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**Chapter 1:**

"_[Redacted] is an [redacted] disorder, one that brings conscious intrusive thoughts and [redacted] - 'Touch the bannister. Pick up that rock. You'd better do it, or__** something terrible will happen**__.'" _— _Tim Howard_

_..._

Morty jolted out of bed—awake. He didn't remember falling asleep, but there he was, rubbing his blurry eyes and stretching his stiff limbs.

Something in his brain told him that he wasn't supposed to fall asleep. He had been watching…for something. Looking at the door to make sure that it stayed closed. That he stayed safe. The more he thought about it, the more worried he became. How could he have taken his eyes off the door?

Morty dragged himself out bed and cautiously stalked around the room, looking for anything that wasn't supposed to be there, checking corners and nooks for anything suspicious. He let out a relaxed breath. _Nothing_. The room was reassuringly silent and devoid of any other living beings. His porcelain elephant stood peacefully on his nightstand, the pin-up girls plastered over his walls smiled down at him, and his trinkets, small mementos from his various adventures with Rick, steadfastly sat on his shelves—everything was where it was supposed to be. His room was secure.

Now Morty could focus on what was truly important.

The door.

It stood, imposing, on the far side of the room. The door was firmly shut and Morty squinted to find that the lock was still locked. _Good_. The main entryway was protected—he could settle back down now. Morty squiggled into his soft blankets and peacefully curled up on his bed. He quietly laid beneath his blankets and mused to himself, thinking about the adventures Rick and he shared.

Morty took a happy stroll through memory lane.

He thought about the beautiful women he met in Atlantis. Their mesmerizing tails, and their even more mesmerizing…melons. He giggled to himself, reliving the feeling of touching their round, firm "melons" and playing with the mermaids.

He thought about the aliens he met in Beta-Meliphun 7, whose peculiar looks enraptured his imagination.

And he thought about _Him_. The Jellybean King.

Morty tripped—memory lane was covered with spiked traps and ugly monsters.

The Jellybean King had cornered Morty in the bathroom, had tried to rape him. Morty squirmed, suddenly feeling like the blankets around his were too restrictive, remembering the feeling of the King's slimy hands on him. He was more terrified of the Jellybean King than anything else—

–And, Morty reminded himself, the _Jellybean King_ was also dead. There would be no more sentient, perverted gelatinous beans going after him anymore. The disgusting pervert could never hurt Morty again.

Nevertheless, Morty wondered to himself how he could defend himself if it happened all over again. Could he save himself if there were no toilets, no exits, and—most importantly—no Rick to retreat to? If the Jellybean King was, say, in Morty's hallway, would Morty be able to escape?

Morty frustratedly reminded himself that there was no Jellybean King in his hallway, and that the question wasn't important.

…but still. Would he be able to defend himself?

It wasn't a particularly important or relevant hypothetical question, but suddenly, it was more pertinent that anything in the world. Morty's heart raced; he quickly took stock of the room, terrified. Was the door locked? The most important boundary between Morty and his would-be intruder was the locked door. It was of utmost importance that that lock remained firmly locked.

Morty sprung up from bed to check. _Good_, the door was locked. He looked away, checking the locks on the windows as well, sighing in satisfaction once he found that everything was locked up tight. Now he could breath again. He felt himself calm as he gulped down big mouthfuls of air, breathing hard to calm himself down.

_No one in, no one out_. He was safe.

He was safe. He was safe. He was safe. He was…imagining the Jellybean King in the hallway again. He could practically see the Jellybean King, pressed up against his door, peering in the cracks, salivating in wait for poor, unsuspecting Morty to leave his door unlocked.

Well, that dirty bean would get no piece of Morty. Morty intended to stay up all night if he had to, protecting the door's lock and checking to make sure that the room was secure.

Never mind the fact that Morty _knew_ that there were no overgrown jellybeans in the hallway, Morty just felt more secure knowing that _if_ there was an intruder he'd be totally safe. Morty laid back down, getting ready to go back to sleep.

And then he sprung back up again. What was Morty thinking? Death and rape and horror were at his door, he couldn't just go to sleep! What if the door was unlocked? What if, because Morty was busy counting sheep or doing something else equally trivial, someone slipped past his carelessly unlocked door and hurt him?

Morty felt as if a heavy stone had dropped straight through his heart. He was so, so very scared. He felt his heart rate accelerate and his pupils dilate.

_No!_ Morty was safe! As long as he kept the door locked, he would be safe.

_**As long as he kept the door locked**_, he would be safe.

"_Don't be an idiot", _Rick's voice echoed in his head. Of course. Rick had always berated for Morty for not being careful enough, for not checking to make sure that everything was just right. This time, though, Morty would be sure to make no mistakes. He checked the lock again, mentally patting himself on the back for remembering Rick's advice.

Morty laid back down.

He quietly tried to lull himself back to sleep.

B ut he couldn't sleep. He felt far too afraid. The would-be-rapist-if-he-wasn't-dead was waiting for him, waiting for Morty to leave the door unlocked. Morty _knew_, he knew that he had checked the lock a couple seconds ago. But…Morty felt so…_afraid. _What's the problem with checking the lock one more time if it'll help him feel better?

So Morty checked the lock again.

And again.

And again.

And again—until Rick woke up at 4:55 in the morning (which, considering his unusual sleep schedule, was not a time that Morty could anticipate nor predict) to build some gadget-or-the-other.

_Rick was awake_! The Jellybean King, if he were still alive, wouldn't dare show up at Morty's door with Rick around! And so, Morty finally went back to sleep, peacefully and happy.

At 4:55 in the morning.


	2. Beth I

**These plots will converge soon, I promise. The title is more of a reference to this sub-not-really-sub plot. The rape and subsequent emotional fallout Morty went through cannot be considered "small things"; although, you could possibly consider him developing [redacted] an arbitrary and unfortunate event, and hence a "small thing" (?).**

**In this chapter I will cover some small actions and interactions that will affect the character's psyches disproportionately; thus, fulfilling the title a bit better.**

***Edited to make Beth sound more age-appropriate. Feedback on Beth's voice would be much appreciated.**

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**Chapter 2**

"_Sometimes people hurt more than they can handle… And sometimes they don't know how to ask for help. They're so caught up in their own pain, they end up hurting everyone around them." _— _Rebecca Donovan_

_..._

_Back in 4__th__ grade, the young Beth Smith got her first writing assignment. It was a "diary project" of sorts, where students would be required to log their feelings and experiences with a daily entry. The teacher had emphasized the fact that she wanted "emotional honesty", that she expected the children to actually recount the feelings of the day and not just to mechanically detail the events of the day._

_It was, frankly, a pretty strange assignment in Beth's opinion. When the students first received the assignment, they giggled to each other about how dumb it was. Who would actually write about their feelings in a school assignment? The students discussed the random crap they would fill the journal with instead of doing the actual assignment. Tommy said that he'd write about playing his Nintendo, and only about playing his Nintendo—in a subtle revolt against the assignment. Another girl, Sarah, said that she'd write about unicorns, and that she would never even think about detailing real emotions in the journal. Beth herself bragged to the others that she would subvert the assignment by writing a quick and careless entry if only to satisfy the teacher's requirements._

_Nevertheless, when Beth sat down to write her first journal entry, she found herself dissatisfied. Her first entry, a response to the given prompt "What aspects of your family life make you happiest today? What about your family do you think will make you happiest when you are 30 or 40 years old?" read:_

_._

"_My immediate family is healthy at the moment and we have alot of money. Mom and dad are cool and smart-I love them. When I am 30 to 40 years old, I think the same things will please me (although, closeness to a cute boy would be nice too). The health of my immediate family may worsen by then, however, which would be unfortunate."_

_._

_The response answered the question well enough, she'd probably would score well on the assignment. Nevertheless, Beth was unhappy with the response. Perhaps it was a little too removed, a little too stiff and careless. This question was particularly important to her, far too important to squander with a bad answer like the one she had written. Beth crumpled up the paper and decided to write an actual answer._

_The teacher probably wouldn't read it anyway. If she felt it was too vulnerable, Beth could always throw it away and use her previous response. Although she reassured herself that she wouldn't actually end up showing her new draft to anyone, she secretly knew that she wouldn't have the heart to throw away the draft after she put her real feelings down on the paper._

_Beth put her pen to the paper to write an actual response this time. It was a bit harder; she paused between sentences, trying to find the right words to express how she felt._

_._

"_I live at home with mother. My father comes home every once in a while to take me out to ice cream. I love my parents, but I wish my parents and I would talk more often. I wish my dad would come home more and bring me with him to the crazy places he goes to. I adore my dad's weirdness and my parents smarty-pantsness. My mother is all responsible and boring, but occasionally dad will convince her to do something fun. _

_Dad is never home, and mom and dad often fight on the rare occasions he comes back. We don't hang out often and I wish I was closer to him. Everyone elseses parents hang out with them. Why can't my dad be like their dads. I want to play Nintendo with my dad like Tommy does with his dad! It's not fair!_

_I think that what would make me happiest would be to be closer to my family when I'm 30 to 40. Maybe I'd even get to go out more with my dad on his "dangerous" adventures once I'm older! In addition, I want a family of my own. A kid, maybe two, and husband to do..adult stuff with (like kiss! Right now my parents won't let me kiss boys because they say that kissing is a marriage thing. Pah! Dad is always kissing women, so why can't I kiss boys?). When I have a family, I will talk to them about their days and their emotions, unlike my parents who never have time to talk :(! I want to be the bestest mother out there! I also want to be a heart surgeon!_

_I found some deep poetry on the internet that I relate to__:_

"_You're trying to do the normal things and I am throwing up dull pieces of truth onto our kitchen table. I can't lie anymore. These are the things I've done and they're mostly sad…This life has woven itself into the notches of my spine and I hear it creak every time I stand." (anonymous)._

_I feel sad a lot. I wish we could hang out and do "family stuff" more often. Whenever I see my friends hang out with their parents, they always look so happy._

_I want to go for ice cream and pretzels and fries with my dad just like Tommy does! I can't wait till I'm an adult so that I can go on adventures with dad more often!"_

_._

_Beth felt…happy. She liked what she had written, and it had felt good to write about how she felt. She quietly set the journal on the table and went off to go to sleep._

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_Beth woke up sometime around eleven o'clock (which to the nine-year-old Beth seemed pretty late in the night)._

_Her throat was dry and she felt the acute need to get something cool down her throat before she began to cough. She was really, really thirsty._

_She left her cute, pink bedroom behind to head down the stairs. At the bottom she found her father Rick sitting at the table reading something. He seemed somewhat amused. She craned her head to look at what Rick was reading and mentally kid-cursed when she found him looking over her school assignment._

_Frick. She doubted that he'd appreciate the emotional vulnerability._

_"Hey sweetheart, did you write this?", Rick chuckled to her._

_'Play it cool, Beth," Beth warned herself. She rubbed her head sheepishly, "Oh, yeah! It was some dumb school assignment that I faked my way through. Teachers, are soo weird sometimes!"_

_Rick tilted backwards in his chair, "Oh jesus, you don't know how relieved I am to hear that Beth. When reading this I thought you had already begun your dramatic teenager stage! Like, c'mon, I take you out plenty, and I bet Timmy's dad doesn't build custom toys for him, and I don't think there's anything to complain about because-"_

_Beth interrupted him with a mock offended huff to prevent him from going on tirade, "Daddyy, I was just putting stuff on the paper to please the teacher, I don't actually think any of that! I would never write anything that lame," she snorted, "The teacher just wanted to see some emotional stuff, so I just threw some poop at the paper and hoped it stuck! Like, look at some of the stuff in there!"_

_"Oh man, you even put a poem in here sweetheart. You really beat the 'dramatic' aspect to death. I mean, what kind of shmuck would actually write something like this!"_

_Water forgotten, Beth and Rick laughed with each other for a while after that, making fun of the poor moron who would legitimately write or believe a note like this. _

_What a poor, poor fool._

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_._

_When she went to school the next day, she eagerly looked forwards to seeing what random garbage the other students wrote. What she heard, however, surprised her._

_Tommy, her best friend, had decided to take the assignment seriously. So did Sarah, for that matter._

_"Y'know, I actually liked writing about how I felt", said Tommy._

_Beth quickly snatched his journal away from him, reading what Tommy wrote. Stuff about playing games with his father, making cookies with his mother…blah, blah, blah. Beth snickered._

_Tommy snatched the paper back from her. "What?"_

_"You nerd," Beth giggled at him, "you actually tried? I just wrote whatever would please the teacher. Look at Tommy's journal Sarah! It's soo dramatic!"_

_Sarah looked it over. She looked at Beth as if she was the wrong one here. "You know…I kind of like it," she shyly smiled at Tommy. "It open…and it's nice. I don't see anything wrong with it."_

_Beth huffed and walked away, rolling her eyes at how hammy everyone was being. She squashed down any feelings a bitterness inside and tried to convince herself that Rick and she were just too cool for everyone else._

_Far too cool to ever, ever, write anything that emotionally vulnerable again._

_The rest of Beth's journal after that was filled with quick anecdotes about the events in her life—nothing real, and more importantly, nothing emotional._

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Beth indifferently reminisced about her childhood—with her good friend red wine of course. How dramatic, Beth scoffed at her old self. That's just a part of growing up Beth supposed; the pathetic child, little Beth, was just going through a particularly emotional phrase. That sort of emotional luggage was meant for young and foolish children, it inevitably had to be ditched by anyone who wished to grow up.

Poor Jerry, poor _stupid_ Jerry, of course, never got the memo. Beth mentally thanked Rick for saving her from _Jerry_hood. Jerry was always crying about everything:

"Oh no, my R2D2 coins!"

"Pity me, I'm don't have a job and I'm lonely!"

Beth quietly whispered to herself, mocking Jerry: "Oh no, I'm a _pathetic bitch_ and _I can't do anything right_! Have my children and save me from my own idiocy!" She barked out a sarcastic laugh.

Beth resented the fact that both of her children were Jerry halflings. They were fifty percent stupid emotions and fifty percent cold logic. When her children got all emotional—when Summer cried and asked Beth if she was attractive, when Morty whined to her that he couldn't sleep because he was scared of jellybeans, or some other childish crap like that—Beth wasn't really sure what to do.

That wasn't her territory. Let the idiot Jerry handle his idiot territory for once.


	3. Summer I

**Chapter 3**

**I hope someone gets the little easter egg in the beginning.**

**On a side note, I am friends with someone in real life who speaks just like Rick. The similarity is uncanny. This guy tends to say the name of the person he's speaking to frequently when he talks, and even though he's never watched Rick and Morty, he one time said to me, "that just sounds like _ with extra steps".**

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_"Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent."_

_-Carl Jung_

_._

The number "23" burned a hole into Summer's retinas. That was the number of followers she had: twenty-three. The big, fat lines on the screen of her phone glared up at her, taunting Summer. There were only twenty-three people who cared to glance at her social media account, and she was pretty sure one of those people was Jerry, too.

She despondently switched over to someone else's feed, landing on the page of a popular girl who had hundreds of photos of parties, special outings, and awards. At the top of the feed, there was a large photo of a pink frosted cake, compete with the blue iced words "Happy Birthday Christina LaCroix" and a caption underneath from Christina that read "I'm so lucky to have such devoted friends who put together this amazing surprise party!" She jealously eyeballed the numbers "3425", which denoted the number of likes the photo got. Why did this "Christina LaCroix" girl have so many friends on Instapix, and why didn't Summer? Summer tried so hard. Every day without fail, she checked out what was trending and then posted a photo that corresponding to the current trend. She was on her phone all day so that she could respond to every text almost instantly (except for Nancy's texts—those weren't worth a response). What gave Christina the right to get popular so easily?

Summer could feel the pressure building up in her head; an angry, insecure feeling settled over her like fog on a humid morning. It just wasn't fair. Summer threw her phone angrily into the pillow on her bed, as if chucking the phone would somehow fix the unjustness of it all. She had wasted her _life_ on trying to be popular on social media. She had given up so much, sacrificed so many breakfasts and conversations and adventures to keep up with her social media accounts.

All for what? Summer was miserably unpopular at school, especially after she had gotten tiny Rick expelled. And there would never, ever be a cute little pink cake wishing Summer a happy birthday—at least not from anyone who wasn't her mother, and Summer was quite sure that she never wanted cake from her mom again. The last time Beth (who was shit-faced drunk at the time) had tried to bake a cake for Summer's birthday, a larval Goolago ended up coming out of it and taking Morty hostage in its slimy terryfolds—Summer wasn't eager for a repeat of that birthday.

If only she could increase her follower count, even just a little bit. Summer was sure that if she got just enough followers, she would be happy. Followers meant friends, and if Summer only just had a few more friends, she was sure she'd have someone to celebrate her birthday, drive her late to school on picture day, and hang out with when Rick and Morty were out on adventures and Beth was too busy arguing with Jerry to make any interesting conversation.

Summer just felt so angry all the time. She was stuck in a cage of her own making—no one was forcing her to be on her phone all day, no one else was so obsessed with followers and likes and retweets. And yet, it mattered so much. Summer could never let her online account go because she had already spent so much of her life on it. Instead of going out, Summer often stayed home and agonized over the photos and messages she posted. Now, she had no real connections and no real friends (Nancy didn't count as a friend—she was more like an annoying younger sibling who tagged along uninvited to social gatherings).

Despite the meager 23 followers, despite the 12 likes she got on her last post, every number above zero was a major boost to Summer's ego. Every number imparted a small sense of accomplishment. That is, until Summer looked at Christina LaCroix's follower count. Bitterness surged through her—Summer's hard-won numbers seemed petty and small in comparison to Christina's. Summer balled her hands into fists, pressing her fingernails tight into the skin of her palm.

She really, _really_ wanted to go shoot aliens with Rick right now.

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The pancakes wasted away on Summer's plate, the once delicious treats now drenched soggy with maple syrup. It was another regular morning, with her dad fiddling with his ePad, her mom occasionally making attempts at conversation, and Summer typing on her phone steadfastly ignoring the two. And, like many of Summer's other mornings, Rick suddenly burst in shouting something inaudible about technology, Morty in tow.

Rick grabbed Summer's arm. "I need you to shoot some guys for m-me. I would have M-M-Morty do it, but," Rick glared back at Morty, "he's too much of a pansy-ass to shoot a freaking gun straight."

Morty sheepishly stared back at Rick and began to protest: "They were j-just defending their homes, Rick! I-I don't think it's ethical to-"

"I don't care. So are you down to shoot some assholes or what, Summer?" Rick interrupted Morty.

It didn't take long for Summer to come up with her answer. "I'm so down. Give me cool gun though, the one with the lasers that turn the target inside out." Her trigger finger had really been itching recently, and Summer was eager for the chance to get out and shoot someone—evil or not.

"Summer!" Morty always found Summer's fascination with that one gun in particular strange. "Y-y-you know, we're th-the aggressors here. Like, those guys were j-j-just minding their own business and we popped in and s-stole the core of their…uhh, ship…thing."

Summer ignored him and jumped into the green portal from which Rick and Morty emerged. "I don't care. Let's kick some alien ass!" Rick whooped and ran into the portal behind her. Morty lagged behind, shaking his head and quietly complaining to himself about the two's aggression. He despondently stepped into the glowing, green void and disappeared, leaving everything quiet once again at the breakfast table. Jerry didn't even bother to look up from the virtual balloons he was popping on his ePad—it was just another normal morning for the Smith household.

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**Now we're finally getting to the adventure part of the story. Is there too much introspection, too much telling instead of showing? I'll work on it. Hopefully the action next chapter will help out.**


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